Letting Go
by the missing x
Summary: Set a week after 3x07. "It's funny isn't it?"/ "You used to hate me for playing with your emotions."/ "Our roles have reversed."/ Oliver and Felicity have a heart to heart, and maybe this is what he needs to let her go and move on.


**A/N: Hi there! So this is my first Arrow story, and I'm still not to confident about it but I figure that if it stays on my laptop someone else would think of it and make it better. So I claim originality (you know unless someone else has already done a story like this, and I'm being really stupid for no reason).**

**This is set a week after 3x07 although I don't really ship olicity I was sad for Oliver, it broke my little heart. So I decided to write a 'getting over her' story. Or that's what I tried to start it as anyway. And yes I do realise I am babbling and that most people won't even read this. Cool. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own this (of course I do, but I don't own ****_this_****) **

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"It's funny isn't it?" Oliver chuckled humorlessly, talking to air and ignoring the blonde IT girl in front of her computers.

"You feeling okay, Oliver?" Felicity said, glancing up from her screen to see Oliver much like the Oliver they found in the second foundry.

"No."

Felicity's heart leapt, mainly because this was the first time Oliver hadn't tried to put distance between them or hide how he was feeling. But something was wrong about this picture, and she couldn't put her finger on it.

For the past week Oliver had been quite, and angrier on missions. Roy had even asked her if she knew anything was wrong with him, Diggle had noticed the hero's foul mood but had said nothing to her about it. He had, in a sense, reverted back to the 'I am hunting people off a list' Oliver, and it pissed her off more than anything to see him just bottle up emotions.

"What's wrong, then?" She asked, swiveling her chair around to face in his direction, although he made no move to turn and face her.

"It's funny isn't it?" He said again, shaking his head and pushing himself back against the concrete beam. "I never thought our roles would switch."

"Oliver, what are you talking about?" She asked, her features becoming one of worry and concern for her friend. Right- friend.

He stayed silent and closed his eyes, and Felicity thought that he might have fallen asleep. But then, who was she kidding? This man didn't do sleep- good sleep anyway. He did do good _sleep_, but sleep having a different meaning altogether. Was she really having this in her head?

Oliver took in a deep breath before opening his eyes again and finally looking at her. But she was taken aback by the pain and hurt laced in his face, it was like he had been tortured and held all the pain in and brought it out now. It saddened her to see him like this, because never in her years of knowing Oliver Queen did he ever show that kind of emotion.

"You used to hate me for playing with your emotions." He finally said, looking right at her in a way that should not be humanely possible. It was like he was seeing past the flash and bones to look right at the heart of her soul.

She shook her head and whispered, "Oliver, I never hated you."

He laughed darkly to himself, "You probably had no idea but you hated me for playing with your emotions, some part of you anyway. At the mansion when I basically _gave _you to Slade-"

"I knew what was happening, Oliver. And if you hadn't Slade would have killed every single one of us. You made a choice, and it saved us all." She stated.

"Everyone keeps saying I made the choice. You, Diggle, even Thea. What if all those choices were wrong? What does that make me?" Oliver asked, desperation seeping into his voice and Felicity shook her head.

"Oliver, what is going on with you? All week you've been distant and quieter, Roy's worried, Diggle's worried, I'm worried, even Laurel is worried. You haven't talked to us all week and now your all 'King of the Brood'. Oliver you've got to let someone in, please." She asked, taking her last grand stand against the Oliver of 2012.

"I made a choice." He whispered, "and it was the wrong one."

"Then _fix _it." She pressed. Trying to get him to look at her again, but he had gone back to looking far beyond the see-able. Maybe he was hallucinating about Shado and Sara, or any other women that were on his fantasy island.

"I can't." He said, his voice chocked and hollow. "It's too late, and I'm sure you can agree with me."

Felicity was shocked, "What?"

"Our roles have reversed." He laughed, "I never thought that it could happen. But it did."

"You're accusing me of playing with your emotions? Oliver, I have not done anything that could have toyed with your emotions." She stressed, offended he would even think of such a thing.

"You probably don't know then," he said, "I knew that you weren't going to wait for me. You told me after Sara died, but part of me never believed you. And I guess it was stupid not to believe you because I had built up the perfect image of you, who you are, what we could be." He whispered.

"And it was stupid for me to do that. I know, but I couldn't stop it. I knew it wasn't fair to you, or me, so I stopped. I really stopped properly functioning altogether. But then you come into the foundry and act like everything is perfectly normal and I can't help but think that everything will be okay."

Felicity couldn't believe what she was hearing, this was Oliver- the 'I put the fear of God into them' Oliver- breaking down and basically talking about she had been playing with his emotions the whole time. She didn't even know that coming into the foundry and acting normal would have messed with his head. Honestly, it felt kind of good (in a bad way of course) that Oliver was getting a taste of his own medicine. She had spent months feeling like this and when it was finally in her hands it was ripped away.

"Then what isn't okay, Oliver? That our roles have reversed and you don't want me hurting you, which I do _not _admit to? Or that you finally know what it's like to have it all ripped out." She demanded.

Oliver sagged his head. "I didn't think that you of all people would do it." He whispered. "I've been waiting for the moment when you finally tell us and then I'll get over it- over you. But it's been a week and you still haven't said anything."

"What are you talking about? I have nothing to tell you." She asked, a week- a week. What could have happened a week before this to make everything that they had built up go down in a second?

"You and Ray." He chocked out, closing his eyes. Like a child not being able to wake up from a nightmare.

"Oliver, there is no me and Ray. I told you that last week and I told Diggle that, too." She shook her head. That might have been a lie, there was a 'her and Ray', _now_. But not then. And yes, she felt awful for not telling them, but they've had to deal with everything this week and she feared that adding her happiness on top of everything sad would just be over-kill.

"Felicity, you don't have to hide it I already saw it." Oliver said, finally bringing his eyes to meet hers and she knew what he had seen. He was there that night, the night that she had stupidly labeled a very good night. She wanted to explain; even she couldn't wish that much cruelty on anyone. She wished she could say that it was a one time only thing, she wished that she could say it never happened, she wished she could say that it meant nothing.

But she would be lying to him, and to herself.

He stood up, looking at her from his true height. He smiled sadly at her, "One thing I've come to know. Guys like me, we don't get the girl."

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**A/N: So thanks for reading, and it would be absolutely awesome if you could leave a review so I know how things went. :)**


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